Amidst The Sea
by XSilverLiningsX
Summary: Kai/Lann, Evie/Karok, Pirate AU. Thrown into an inescapable prison off the coast of Colhen, Lann resigned himself to his slow death. Well, that was until Captain Evie of the notorious Sweetie Bear Pirates blew up the prison and offered him a chance to live. However, it was just his luck to fall in love with the First Mate that seemed to hate his guts.
1. Lann Really Isn't A Damsel In Distress

So far, life sucked. Quite a lot, actually.

If Lann counted all the times that Gallagher had gotten him into trouble with the local police, he would be out of fingers and toes to count with. Not to mention this was more than likely the last straw, since he was left here to die in a moldy cell while that bastard hid in a hole and hoarded the money he stole from the efforts of the others.

Only one person had any sympathy for the street rats, and that was the local flower-girl, Tieve, that gave tidbits of bread and milk to whoever that had the time to run a few errands for her. Lann had done a few himself, but then her scary asshole of a boyfriend that was in the Royal Army, Keaghan, showed up in town and not even Gallagher dared to even talk to her.

It wasn't fair that he didn't even get a trial, but then again, life in this sorry little arm of the mainland was brutally harsh and unfair to anybody unlucky enough to live there. Well, all the not-rich people anyways.

Seriously, all he did was pinch a few bits of coin from that jerk of a General, Riordan or something, and the guards were all over him. Gallagher had promised that he would distract the guards, but the damn womanizer was too busy chatting up some poor girl while he was getting beat black and blue by the Bucket-Head Brigade of Assholes.

And now he was stuck in prison for the rest of his life just because of a few pieces of gold.

Well, looking at the bright side of things, at least he still had his hands. He'd heard stories from the old drunkards of faraway lands that would chop off limbs like pieces of meat if you stole even a piece of bread.

Folding his arms behind his head, Lann laid back on his makeshift bed of hay. Sighing in boredom, he blew a wayward lock of his red hair out of his face and turned over onto his side. The prisoner's pants that the guards had ordered him to put on itched in several very uncomfortable places and they hadn't bothered to return his shirt or shoes. He had no possessions besides his clothes, but hey, a free roof over his head for the rest of his life was way better than the streets.

Then his stomach growled. Loudly.

Lann flopped onto his stomach and buried his face into the foul-smelling hay. He was hungry, damn it, but from what he gleaned for the past week of imprisonment was that the guards brought in food and water only once a week on Sundays. Even though the food was sort-of bad and half-rotten, something was better than nothing.

But damn it all, it was only Tuesday!

Lann sighed and pushed himself to his feet. He began to pace around the tiny space and every few minutes he would walk up to the barred window-hole and look out into the deep blue expanse of water that surrounded the entirety of the prison.

The saltwater dripped from every crack in the walls and smothered everything with its tangy scent.

Although he had haunted the bare edges of the outpost, he had never gotten close enough to see the ocean in all its glistening beauty from the land. The great expanse of twinkling blue had always captivated him and kept his interest since the early days of his childhood, but the daily searches for food, water, and shelter kept him way too busy to bother exploring the vast unknown. Life is cruel, after all.

Staring out into the wondrous world from between the metal bars, Lann felt that at least, in due time, he would die with the magnificent view of the endless sea and a crimson sunset burned into his memory.

* * *

The title of '_Supreme Commander of the Twelve Seas'_ had been cool and all at first, and '_Mistress of the Five Thousand'_ seemed even better than the half-dozen other ones she'd garnered over the years, but in spite of all the awesome publicity and notoriety, Captain Evie of the Sweetie Bear Pirates just simply preferred to be called Evie.

At the moment she was not really on duty per se, but rather she was taking a vacation from her terrorize-the-Royal-Army-campaign. Midnight raids on fortified strongholds could only do so much for her complexion, after all.

Taking a sip of the deliciously cool lemonade that had been lovingly made by her hubby Karok, Evie relaxed as her hammock swung gently in tune with the cool sea breeze that wafted through the main deck of the _S.S. Firebolt_.

The _S.S. Firebolt_ was, by all means, not as large as the Royal Army's monstrosities they called boats; it was small enough to slip around defenses unnoticed and unleash chaos when their enemies least expected it. Also, it was not a good idea to underestimate the power of the ship as it had earned its name from being the only ship still standing while at least seven naval carriers burned to crisps after a barrage of flaming cannonballs that came from their specially-designed cannons.

However, the one thing her crew excelled most at was the art of hijacking. Once the _S.S. Firebolt_ cut close enough to the main enemy ship, her small crew of four, including herself, would cross over and proceed to completely humiliate their opponents by smashing, slicing, piercing, and blowing up everything and anything in their sights.

Evie sighed and took another sip of her drink. The sunset was nothing but beautiful in these parts of the seven seas, but seeing almost the exact same thing for the past week was making her a bit itchy. She might end her vacation early and go back to plundering very soon if she couldn't find the hot springs that some of the locals in Hoarfrost had pointed out.

Mmm. Just thinking of the hot springs made Evie take another sip of her lemonade before relaxing again into the hammock.

The best thing about setting a hammock on the best part of her ship was that she could hear the rest of her crew from wherever they were and easily determine what they were doing at the moment. From what she could hear, Karok was in the kitchen putting together a late supper with the foreign meats and vegetables they had plundered from an outpost off the coast of Ortel a few days prior.

She had met the lovable giant of a man years back before she had even began to live her dreams of sailing on the oceans. He had the coolest spikes of dark hair, the quirkiest humor, and miles of patience and Evie had fallen head over heels in love before she had realized it. She was lucky that he felt the same and thus they began a clandestine relationship as Karok had been betrothed to another and Evie had been long been disowned by her own family for her eccentricities.

She crashed his miserable wedding day and dragged him out to a never-ending adventure on the ocean blues. He never looked back on his old life even once, and she loved him even more because of it. Of course, there was also the little bonus of that he could whip up the best-tasting meals from whatever that was in the storage.

On the other side of the ship there was Fiona, her trusty cartographer and best friend. She was currently in the war-room going over her most recent developments on her topography maps. It always help to know where they were as it was easy to get lost within the seemingly-endless expanse of crystal clear waters. She had met the stoic blonde woman when Evie had the misfortune to get cornered in an alleyway by a few thugs who wanted a little more than her money.

The admittedly beautiful young woman had smashed all of their balls up their asses with powerful kicks before knocking them out with quick jabs of her elbows to their necks. As it turned out, Fiona was on the run from the Royal Army because she had defected from their corrupted ways and turned traitor in a sense. It didn't take much to have her hop on along her journey. Her hubby found the woman's penchant for silence a pleasant change from Evie's constant chatter, but Fiona's expressionless face unnerved him even after a few years of working with her. Evie didn't mind though, since it helped to have a female to talk to about girl stuff.

Last but not least, it was easy to spot Kai keeping watch on from atop of the crow's nest. It had been a no-brainer to plunk him the position of First-Mate because of his level-headedness and ability to plan ahead, which was a strategy that seemed to elude Evie because she lived mostly in the moment. The archer is thankfully not as stoic as Fiona but he is nonetheless a man of few words and preferred tactical thinking before shooting an arrow into some poor soul's eye-socket.

Surprisingly, it had been Karok who had found the young man while they were wandering around Ainle in search for supplies. At first he didn't look much more than a malnourished vagrant, with his disheveled and greasy black hair messily tied back, but it took less than a minute for him to floor two of the three Royal Army Generals that had the misfortune of attempting to arrest Karok for his crimes. It took even less persuasion than it did for Fiona to get him to join her crew and he clicked right in. Fiona found a person that she could do her strange telepathy-through-staring-and-shrugging with, Karok could talk about the latest machines and black-market goods that flowed through the various ports they docked at, and Evie was able to rely on Kai to make sure the boat stayed afloat with the necessary repairs and that nobody starved or died from insufficient supplies.

All in all, her tiny ship felt homey and comfortable, but Evie still felt like they were missing something. Or someone.

Evie popped out of her reverie as Kai slid up next to her like the quiet shadow he was and waved a gloved hand in front of her face. Apparently she'd been thinking and ignoring him for quite a while if by the slightly annoyed expression on his face. It was harder to tell apart from his everyday angry look, but the tick on his eyebrows gave it away. Evie did know her crew from the inside out, after all.

"Huh?...Oh, um, yes?"

"…We are approaching the Perilous Ruins Prison."

"Oh, well, let's give the guards a little wakeup call! We can't let them think that we've disappeared or something!"

Evie squirmed her way out of her hammock and stretched once she got out. She finished up the last of her lemonade before waving the glass at Kai. Her First-Mate sighed and took the glass before walking slowly in the direction of the kitchen.

Evie stuck out her tongue at the man's back as she flounced over to the ship's helm. Grabbing the wheel, she turned it so that they were now on course to the tiny island on the darkening horizon. They would reach the prison a little past midnight, the time when the guards were the most sleepy and unprepared.

A dark smile crossed Evie's face. Maybe this would be a good time to try out the new explosion upgrades to the fireball cannons?


	2. Hey, The Party Started Without Me!

The sound of cannon fire and screaming startled Lann from his impromptu nap. Blearily rubbing his eyes and stumbling to his feet, the young man pressed his body against the cool metal bars of the entrance to his cell. He watched as the guards, half-dressed and mostly still asleep, rushed past his cell and shouted rapid-fire orders as they headed down the stairs to the armory.

None of them paid any heed towards Lann or the other prisoners. The giant man in the cell next to him, his name was Krunk or something, started to bang on the metal bars with his hands while demanding to be set free. Of course, this roused the rest of the others as they too started to create a ruckus and soon there was chaos as the warden on the prison tried to get everybody to quiet down by firing his pistol several times at the ceiling.

The ceiling gave a mighty tremble before it broke apart; a huge chunk of stone squished the warden like a bug. Looking up at the sky, Lann saw _flaming fireballs_ flying towards the hole. The chunks of debris that exploded upon contact destroyed most of the floor before crushing through the rest of the stonework. The stone floor shifted and, with a mighty crack, half of the cell block gave way and fell into the dark and still waters below. From the absurd height of the prison, it was unlikely that anyone had survived the fall.

It was just his luck that he was the only person on the _other_ side of the cell block. And he was still stuck behind the bars!

As if it was the answer to his dilemma, a flaming cannonball smashed into the left side of the cell's bars like a knife through butter, the heat melting a hole through both the metal and the floor. Lann squeezed through the small hole, ignoring the pain on his back from getting caught on the jagged metal edges in his hurry, and dashed down the stairs to the armory. It was just in time too as the rest of the top floor gave a resounding crack and lurched into the ocean. Just a moment too slow and he would've been dead along with the rest of the prisoners.

The armory was bustling with activity as the remaining prison guards rushed around and grabbed what they could from the weapon racks before racing out of the building and into the burning courtyard. One of the last two guards noticed Lann as he crept close to a sword rack.

"Hey! You there!" Lann grabbed the remaining two swords from the rack and advanced on the guard and slit his neck before he had the time to yell anything else. The other guard surprised him and grabbed from behind in a headlock, but Lann managed to aim a downwards kick at his shin.

When the guard let go with a surprised shout of pain, Lann picked up the swords he dropped and shoved one through the wheezing guard's gullet. The man stumbled backwards and tripped over his feet before flopping onto his side, unmoving.

Lann glanced at the two swords he held. It was a strange feeling to hold something so familiar yet at the same time he knew it was the first time doing so. It felt like a case of creepy déjà vu.

Shaking his head, Lann made his way quickly into the fray of the courtyard. As he sliced his way through the weakened remnants of the prison's guards, he also dodged the flaming cannonballs that detonated shrapnel and tar everywhere and anywhere the 25-pound metal balls hit.

After the 12th guard fell to his blades, Lann heard ominous rumbling sounds coming from behind and turned to see the prison collapsing into chunks of debris before toppling over the cliff and into the ocean. The remaining guards, upon seeing their outpost crumble and disappear, quickly turned tail and ran in the other direction but from out of nowhere a cannon ball exploded near the guards, killing them.

Only one guard in the far-off distance was left to crawl away in the mud, but how he was going to cross the ocean to get back to the mainland without a boat was questionable so Lann let him be. It was time to escape back to town and hide out for a bit before rejoining the rest of the street rats.

Turning around, Lann walked face-first into a metal-covered chest and promptly stumbled backwards… into another chest, but this time it wasn't covered in metal.

He heard some woman's shrill scream of "CAN WE KEEP THIS ONE?" before whoever he had just bumped into grabbed him from behind in a bear hug that felt like it crushed all of his ribs into powder. The person, apparently female from the bouncing chest he could feel awkwardly pushing against his back, proceeded to treat him as if he was a ragdoll and swung him around like he weighed nothing.

From his limp and folded-in-half position Lann could see one pair of really large feet and three pairs of smaller ones.

Whoever they were, they were wearing eccentrically buckled leather boots, and usually that meant they were pirates. Since pirates were the only ones who would wear such funny looking shoes. Well, maybe, but it was just his luck to escape prison and then get captured by bloodthirsty pirates instead. Yep, life sucked.

The woman spun him around a few more times and his head banged painfully against somebody's metal chest plate. Ouch. And then another bang. And another.

Seriously, the woman really should stop spinning around. Did she eat too much sugar or something?

Another bang, this time against something that felt like a large chunk of wood, and the swing had enough force behind it that it knocked him unconscious.

* * *

"…Whoops."

Evie looked sheepishly down at the dirty and bedraggled red-head that had suddenly felt like he had gotten at least a hundred pounds heavier in dead weight. She really didn't mean to swing him into Karok's wooden pillar, and definitely not head first.

Well, at least he wasn't bleeding from a crack in his skull. That would've been really bad since they didn't recruit a doctor. Well, she needed to find one first, and they were already in short-supply anyways.

Fiona sighed and took the unconscious young man from Evie and slung him over her armored shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Once her crazy captain got it in her head that someone should join the crew, it was impossible to convince her otherwise. It was better to just go along with her ideas, since not even Karok could argue with that fact and he had the most sway over his dear wife.

What she saw in this scrawny kid, he wasn't a man until he could prove himself to her, Fiona would never be able to completely figure out, but it probably had something to do with his surprising ability to dual-wield. Or the fact that he had the most unusually colored hair because really, bright red hair? It was like a neon sign saying OVER HERE!

Next to Fiona, Kai sighed and ran a hand through his hair as Evie flounced about trying to convince her husband to do… something. He wasn't paying that much attention to whatever rapid-fire babble was coming out of her mouth at the moment. They were all making their way back to the ship, which had been hastily docked in a small rocky alcove that had effectively hid it from scouting enemy ships while they had been busy with the guards.

As Karok and Evie walked ahead, Fiona and Kai continued at a more leisurely pace. The archer's eyes skimmed over the limp curve of their newest member's back, taking in the light scarring and lithe muscles. The messy crimson fluff of hair made him look younger than he probably was, but it didn't take an idiot to tell that the man had lived the rough life for quite a while.

Kai accidentally caught Fiona's eyes while he had been distracted, and her blue eyes stared knowingly into his. She raised a thin eyebrow and Kai looked away with a huff. He was definitely _not_ interested with the man she was carrying over her shoulder. Well, some tiny part of him in some dark corner of his mind wanted to feel if the wild mess of hair felt as soft as it looked─ wait, no. Just no.

Fiona snorted and walked faster to catch up with her captain and the cook. Kai stubbornly kept pace with her, but he avoided meeting her eyes again as they got back on the ship. They parted ways once on deck with Fiona and the human baggage heading towards the crew's quarters, while Kai made his way over to the anchor drop-chain with his customary angry-expression firmly glued onto his face.

There was a lot post-raid work to do and Kai was damn sure going to do it, soft-looking crimson fluffs of hair be damned!


	3. Not Quite A Swashbuckler Yet

_2 Weeks Later_

Lann had assimilated quite easily and without much fuss into Evie's crew. Well, as much as a falsely-accused ex-convict with nary a coin to his name would fit in with pirates that practically sent the Royal Army scurrying in the opposite direction like frightened mice.

The horrid seasickness that lasted for half a week and had him literally hugging the railings every few hours was certainly an _unwelcome_ surprise as well.

Despite his initial fears of being kept as a prisoner aboard the medium-sized warship and chained to the Captain's bedpost, the pirates that had spared his life and "recruited" him into their motley pseudo-family were... quite _odd_, to say the least.

They were definitely not the usual pillage-and-destroy kind of swashbucklers. Lann thanked the Goddess several times over for that. After all, who would be crazy enough to sail under the ridiculous banner of the **Sweetie Bear Pirates** of all things.

Captain Evie was... how would one describe her? She had glossy dark hair, was as pale as a powdered noblewoman, and moved gracefully but silently around deck, seemingly appearing and disappearing whenever she wanted to and scaring the shit out of him whenever she decided to shadow him for the day. It was almost absurd at how confident she was in her insanity and that the rest of the crew let her do whatever without so much a complaint at her scheming and half-baked plans.

Last week she even decided to toss him overboard with a flick of her wrist, sending him flailing down in the direction of the ocean, only to lazily haul him back up on deck the moment before his face hit the saltwater! Lann had laid there, gaping and spluttering like an idiot, as she flounced away to bother someone else.

The second person Lann had met was the really good cook, Karok. The six foot tall giant of a man, with dark hair braided into tight cornrows and sun-kissed skin, was Captain Evie's _special_ companion (to what extent, he could guess). He was quite kind, funny, and easy to talk to after the initial awkwardness, but Lann could say that hands down, Karok made the best chowder that ever existed. Tieve would probably _cry_ if she tried some.

Of course, it would also be prudent to mention that Karok made it clear that he could pretty much crush Lann's skull between his hands if he so much as tried to escape from his temporary assignment in the kitchens. Peeling potatoes was mind-numbing work that left more cuts in his clumsy fingers than actual strips of potato skin, but at least he wasn't a bloody smear on the floor.

Fiona the navigator was next, and suffice to say Lann very nearly worshiped the ground she walked on for her fighting prowess. In addition to looking like a warrior-goddess, with her natural blonde hair and fair skin, he admired her skill with her longsword or hammer, as it practically was an art the silent but formidable woman invented herself. It was nothing like the awkward polearm swings of the guards or the flashy sword moves of the Royal Army trainees.

On their first "mandatory training session" that Evie dragged him to at the crack of dawn, she had wiped the ground with his face without breaking a sweat – several times, in fact. Lann wasn't too disappointed, seeing as he never really held a proper sword in his life, never mind two. Escaping from the Perilous Ruins Prisons didn't count, obviously, because that had been a life-or-death situation. Adrenaline had made him awesome for a few minutes, not real skill, sadly. Fiona made sure to beat that confession out of him. Or perhaps it was the concussion talking...

Last, but not least, there was Kai, the ever-elusive first mate. Lann hardly saw the angry-looking man outside of mealtimes, but even then he dared not glance in his direction for fear of being eviscerated into tiny pieces by the dark-haired man's intense glare. For some reason he could not fathom, Lann supposed that he had made himself an enemy of the first mate despite having never exchanged more than a pitiful squeak and turning tail before any sort of conversation could take place. Lann absolutely dreaded being in the same room as the aristocratic-looking man that could probably make him burst into flames if he managed to glare at him long enough.

And, it was just his luck that on this particular night that the moment he had stepped out of the navigation room after a brief talk with Fiona, he literally bumped into the man. With a startled noise emerging from the back of his throat, Lann took a step back and plastered himself to the wall next to the door as Kai marched past him and into the room without a hitch to his brisk stride.

Lann dared to peek into the room, curiosity keeping him firmly in place. Kai stopped in front of Fiona's desk, the woman was occupied by some of her maps, and looked as if was going to begin talking. However, before anything was said, the man inclined his head slightly – just enough that Lann could see the oil lamps casting flickering shadows on the man's face.

Kai was _looking_ at him, his brow furrowed into the beginnings of yet another deadly glower.

Lann could feel the ghosts of other man's smoldering eyes burning holes into the back of his head as he scampered away in the direction of the safe and empty kitchen.

* * *

Once the _rookie_ disappeared from the doorway with the sound of nimble feet hitting the deck trailing away into the distance, Fiona deigned to acknowledge Kai with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

Kai's own eyebrow twitched in response as his glower was directed at the short stack of papers at the edge of Fiona's desk. He crossed his arms across his chest.

Fiona let out a quiet sigh of disapproval at her friend's irate scowl.


End file.
